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Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.

The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.

Some ancient Popes were Byzantine-Greek, so you might consider them Middle Eastern, if not, then yes all have been European. Actually the history of the papacy is pretty interesting. We all know of the important role of the Pope in the Middle Ages, but the position originated from obscurity up until the time of Constantine, and did not really take on its regal, authoritative nature until much later.

Then again, I wonder how the British and the Church of England are going to react over this. Maybe they use an orange ball in the next national friendly with Argentina?

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When three puppygirls named after pastries are on top of each other, it is called Eclair a'la menthe et Biscotti aux fraises avec beaucoup de Ricotta sur le dessus.
Most of all, you have to be disciplined and you have to save, even if you hate our current financial system. Because if you don't save, then you're guaranteed to end up with nothing.

Spanish, like Japanese, is very easy to speak phonetically; some people think popes speak fluently several languages when truth be told they have their speeches written phonetically for them. You can translate to phonetical here

Indeed, that's also my feeling. The problem is that the Roman Catholic Church has to face several problems and bring in new ideas on how to solve those problems. I was expecting a much younger cardinal to get the nod considering how stressful Papacy is becoming.

I will not lie by saying that I was favoring my home province's Marc Ouellet. It's not only because he's from Quebec, but it's also because he's only 63 and because people thought after Benedict XVI that we'd have a Pope reigning for a longer stretch of time. At the very same time, I was also expecting Peter Turkson (age 64) from Ghana and Odilo Scherer (age 63) from Brazil to be excellent choices as well considering that both are quite moderate on several subjects.

My understanding is he was the runner up to Benedict the last time, which if true, would explain why they were so fast to pick him this time around.

In other news, Vernoica Mars is getting a movie after smashing the record books on Kickstarter.

I wasn't ever a big fan of the show (though do really enjoy watching Bell on screen), but it's interesting to see a cult favorite TV series succeed in resurrecting itself for a movie at least, via crowdfunding (and the potential for other cult favorite tv shows to get around being axed is intriguing). Though I have to wonder what kind of movie $2 million actually allows you to make (Bell alone would probably cost more than that if this was any other movie, I'd assume). I'm hoping the $2 million was more for leverage to show there was real interest for the project to get other potential donors and investors to back the film, than a, "we're going to make a $2 million movie".

Not exactly a Catholic politics junkie, but another theological conservative?

In a time of great moral crisis, that's the battle the Church picks? Gays and contraceptives?

How about reform? How about openness and transparency? How about making their inroads into the Global South -- symbolized by the election of this Argentine -- really count by aligning with the world's poor? Liberation theology is still a taboo...

Humble "good guys" do shit to save the world, lead by example or not. This Pope does not appear to be a fervent reformer. Well, I hope I'll be badly proven wrong and Francis will prove as momentous as John Paul II, and less conservative. I wouldn't bet my money on it though.

I was expecting a much younger cardinal to get the nod considering how stressful Papacy is becoming.

Nate Silver has a posting on his 538 blog at the New York Times on the ages of recent Popes. Francis appears to be the ninth oldest at election of the 255 Bishops of Rome. Nate speculates that perhaps many of the voting cardinals want to have the chance to appoint another Pope in the years ahead. Also Benedict's decision to step down could set a precedent that might lead to pressures on Francis to follow in his precedessor's footsteps if the Argentine starts to display the effects of aging.

Silver also presents this graph of the trends in their ages dating back to 1500. Popes elected since 1800 were considerably younger than those elected in the past couple of decades and served much longer terms.

One can see this trend as an effort by the cardinals to have more control over the Popes they elect.